Rory's Final Farewell
by sapphirerosha110
Summary: With the help of a vortex manipulator, Rory gets to say his goodbye to the greatest man in the universe.


**Warning: Spoilers for season 5, season 6 and season 7 part one, with major spoilers for "A Good Man Goes to War" and "The Angels Take Manhattan" You have been sufficiently informed.**

"Dad!" A woman's voice yelled from behind as she yanked his arm and pulled him out of the street, just as a black car rolled past. Safely on the sidewalk, Rory Williams gasped with shock and tried to catch his breath.

"What happened?" He asked, eyes darting from the car, to the buildings, to the people on the street, "I was just in the graveyard, what… oh dear."

"I'm afraid so." The woman in the trench coat nodded her head sadly and gave his arm a squeeze.

"But… how? I thought that when I… when we… I thought that poisoned the Angels, and that there weren't any left."

"It's like any disease, dad. You can never kill every bacteria no matter how hard you try. There's always one that survives. Now come on. Mummy will be along any moment, but she won't land here."

"Amy!" He exclaimed and grabbed River by the arms, "No, you can't let her come here, you can't let her be trapped like me."

"I already told her to let the Angel take her. Much to my husband's chagrin." River's eyes sparkled with that slightly psychopathic gleam they held whenever she did something to defy the Doctor.

"But… why? She could have had so many more adventures with him. She could have seen so much with him and with you. Why did you tell her to come here?" Rory looked like he was about to cry, and River took his hands,

"Because you're Rory. She's Amy. You died for her and protected her for two thousand years, and she pulled time apart for you. Yours is the greatest love story the universe has ever seen. And I wasn't about to talk my mother out of ever seeing my father again."

Rory nodded his head meekly the way he did when he was too overwhelmed, and River continued

"I'm here to make sure that the two of you are ushered safely into your new lives. And I need to write a book."

"What book?" He asked, and she raised sad eyes to look at him

"I need to tell your story, for the Doctor to follow in the future, which is now his and my mutual past. It's all very wibbly-wobbly, and I need to make sure that you and mother meet each other. That seems to be my great job in life."

Rory followed his daughter over a low hill, past a fountain and into Central Park, where a redhead stood, looking around frantically.

"Amelia!" River called, since she couldn't very well yell out "mother" to a woman who looked younger than she did.

She whirled around, her hair like a cloud of fire in the windy air, then she started running toward them. She stumbled and fell twice, but by the time she reached Rory she was running at her full speed and she launched herself into his arms.

They clung to each other tighter than River had ever seen, and Rory stroked her hair comfortingly. Amy was bawling, tears streamed down her face and she punched him in the back.

"Don't ever make me see you die again. You hear me? Not ever." She held him by the back of the neck with both hands and pressed her forehead to his

"I'll do my best, but I can't promise you anything." He murmured back to her

Amy turned puffy red eyes toward River and said

"You saw it. I know you did, because I saw his name and age. What about me?"

"Spoilers." Was her simple, predictable reply, but she had a sadness in her eyes that Amy had never seen before. She didn't know what to make of it, because she was still recovering from the touch of he Angel

"It must be so strange for you," Amy said, arms still wrapped around her husband, "most people see their parents die, and bury them, and that's that. But here you are, talking to us."

"A lot of things are strange for me. But I finally caught up to the point where the Doctor and I are not moving strictly back to front, and that makes things even more interesting."

"You never got to say goodbye." Amy said to Rory, and tugged on the front of his shirt.

"What's that?" He asked, and River smiled, both of them were in shock from the zap into the past, so she translated between them.

"Amy told the Doctor goodbye, right before she let the Angel take her, but you never got the chance."

"And now I never will." He shrugged

"Maybe I can send him with a different face to do something for you." River said, then clarified when she saw the confused looks on her parents' faces, "If the Doctor comes to see you, and you know it's him, it would tear the universe apart. He interfered in this timeframe too much. In fact he's running out of visits to Earth's World Wars as well, though he didn't create any paradoxes there."

"What if he didn't come here? What if you took me somewhere… else? Somewhere where we know the Doctor will be. I'd like to thank him for everything he showed me." Rory suggested. River bit her lip and tapped a polished fingernail on the vortex manipulator strapped to her wrist.

"We'd have to be very careful. Remember the bit I said about you knowing he was the Doctor? Well, if he knows who you are we might have the same problem, because he'll want to save you. I'll have to take you to one of his old faces. There's one nearby. He visited the construction of the Empire State Building in 1930."

"I thought he didn't tell you about his past because it was spoilers for you."

"Things that happened before he met me for my last time were fair game, but those are all stories for another time. If you want to say goodbye to the Doctor, you'll have to come with me. And Amy, you'll have to stay here."

"NO!" She protested, "I'm not leaving him, I'm not going to be the girl who waited anymore." Her knuckles turned white gripping the fabric of Rory's shirt, and River recognized the same stubborn look that graced her own eyes occasionally.

"Mother, he has to meet you for the first time in that garden. Everything hinges on that, he can't know who you are until then. And you already said your goodbye. This is his time." River extended her hand toward Rory.

"You come back to me, or SO HELP ME, I will pull time apart again to find you. The universe be DAMNED." At the last word, she slapped his arm. She pulled him in for a crushing kiss, then slapped him again.

"I'll take good care of him," River promised, then took his hand and they disappeared in a flash of light.

For Rory, the scenery seemed not to change, except for a few buildings shrinking down into their earlier stages of construction. And Amy was gone. That thought made his heart twist, but he knew that he would be back to her soon.

"There he is." River pointed to a man with messy hair, wearing a suit and tie with cream-colored Chuck Taylors and a long brown duster. He wore the clothes that he'd seen on Amy's Raggedy Man dolls a hundred times as a kid, but the face was different. The body seemed older, but still, the face seemed younger. More… carefree. Not burdened so heavily by the weight of the universe, or the knowledge of the Silence, the Flesh, or River.

"I can't go to him, only you can. He hasn't met me yet and he can't. Just come back here when you've finished. And be quick about it. You know how the Doctor is always running."

Rory nodded, then jogged across the park.

"Doctor!" He called when he was a handful of meters away

The man turned, and it gave Rory a strange feeling to see him with that face, with those eyes devoid of recognition.

"'Ello! Who are you then? Have we met before? I'm terrible with names sometimes." This Doctor smiled and put his hands in the pockets of his duster. Rory's Doctor had never smiled like that except at Amy, and here was this "younger" man, so much more jovial.

"I know you don't recognize me, Doctor. And to be fair I don't recognize this face of yours either."

The man's smile disappeared and he took a step forward

"Stop right there. If you've come to give me a warning, I can't hear it."

"It's not a warning, Doctor. I know full well that you can't have any spoilers about your future. I just… I wanted to thank you. And I had to do it this way for reasons I can't explain. Thanks to you I had the time of my life, I saw and did and experienced fantastic things. I never got to say a proper goodbye. I don't suppose many who travel with you _do_ get that chance. But with a little help, I got my chance. So thank you Doctor, for everything. And someday, remember I said it."

"You're welcome." He said with a furrowed brow.

"Don't ever stop being a dreamer, Doctor. No matter what happens, keep dreaming and keep hoping. From all of us who never got to tell you goodbye." Rory said, then turned on his heel, walked to River, and didn't dare glance back.


End file.
